


The Value of G

by NotQuiteHydePark



Category: New Mutants, Wolverine (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Breakfast, Coming Out, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Nonbinary Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 23:33:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18041216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotQuiteHydePark/pseuds/NotQuiteHydePark
Summary: Warlock answers some unexpected questions about gender from the youngest Wolverine clone.





	The Value of G

Both slices of toast popped up out of Warlock with a satisfying “ping!” Laura put one on each plate, set her own aside, and began to spread strawberry jam on the other, so thick she had to apply it using a soup spoon.

The toaster blinked and smiled. “Happy to breakfast for selffriends!” Warlock exclaimed. “Usedexpired vegetablelifeglow provides sufficient selfbreakfast. Appropriate breakfastmatters for self to obtain?”

Laura nodded. A thin cable (not Cable, Laura reminded herself as she watched; just a cable) with a grappling hook and a hinge on one end shot out of the toaster, towards the fridge, grasped and opened the fridge, removed a bag of nearly rotten zucchini, pulled the bag back onto the breakfast counter, and turned the zucchini from a soft dark green, to grey and black with sparkles inside, to dust.

“Self expresses gratitude for lifeglow of organic matter!” the toaster that was also Warlock burbled. “Breakfast with selffriends is bestbreakfast. Is self good guest?”

“Self is mmmph a very good guest!” exclaimed Gabby, stuffing her mouth with toast. A big pink glob (not Glob, Laura reminded herself; just a glob) of jam feel into her lap.

“Gabby,” Laura started, and then realized that no one was in their apartment besides herself and the alien mutant from Kvch; nobody was likely to mind the mess, nor was anyone likely to object if she popped one claw to clean the spare jam up, and then licked the claw. Still, she’d need to avoid doing that around baseline human adults if she wanted to impress them, or get something from them. Laura never ate with her claws herself; it brought back the wrong kind of memories.

“Self and selffriends breakfast satisfied!” said Warlock, still a toaster. “Happy self can apply heat to ground yeast-infused rectangular grainproduct loaf slice for selffriends all-new-Wolverine and stabby-Gabby!”

“Don’t call me that,” Gabby frowned. “I don’t like that nickname. Never have.”

“Self should apologize. Self apologizes to St— to Gabby-small-Wolverine-sister-selffriend-child.” Warlock raised a four-sided antenna-eyebrow above the box shape of the toaster, at the same spreading out along the counter, as if preparing to assume some other form.

“Why does he do that?” Gabby asked, still irked.

“I think he learned from Berto, or from someone else he encountered early on, that humans under a certain age like having nicknames,” Laura said carefully.

“Also mmmmph,” Gabby continued, licking her other claw, “He must have learned-- waitaminnit." She paused. "Warlock, how did you learn that you were a he?”

Laura stood very still. The mutant from Kvch unfolded his limbs from his toaster form, placing one, then another, and then another circuit-board-pattern leg on the kitchen tiles, and then, as if remembering that humans and mutants on Earth usually display only two legs, folded the third leg back into a black gleaming torso, extended a third arm overhead, and converted that arm until it resembled a pair of spinning disks, with thin tape connecting the two disks, on one side of a watermelon-sized box.

“Is that supposed to be a thing?” Gabby asked.

“It represents a reel-to-reel tape recorder,” Laura guessed. “I saw one once when I infiltrated a radio station.” It was not a great memory. Laura glanced at Gabby and at her own plain toast and at Warlock, as if to say: let’s pay attention to our houseguest and move on.

“Self is displaying historical symbol for memory?” Warlock asked. “Self remembers. Humangender complex. Selffriends could not navigate easily.”

“Tell us about it,” Laura said. “Should we, in fact, be calling you ‘he’?”

“Self knows language evolves,” said the young, kind, anomalous technarch. “Self on Earth landed at earlier stage of language = English. Mutantfriends at that time classed all humans and mutants with variable set including gender variable G with two available settings, corresponding”—Warlock paused, looking at Gabby with two perfectly square, outsized eyes—“to minus one and one, or lettersigns M and F.”

“For he and she,” Laura said slowly. Gabby retracted a claw.

“Most humans at that time held value constant at G = -1 or G = 1,” Warlock continued. His eye-screens flickered, then lit up in green and black. “Selfvalue assigned G hardproblem; self concluded at that time G sub self had no constant value, with most frequent value at zero to -.2”

“I made a friend like that!” Gabby almost squeaked. “Like, a little more male more of the time, but not really either male or female, really.”

“Selffriend smallWolverinesisterGabby is correct! Emotion = gratitude,” Warlock continued. “But no pronoun usage current at time of Earthlanding corresponded to selfstate where G = constant with value of zero, or G = variable. Self chose most common pronoun at that time for humans with G constant but unknown, which at that time—“

“Was he!” Gabby exclaimed, jumping up on the table and putting her foot on her now-empty breakfast plate. “But you’re really a they?”

“Had self landed on Earth at more recent date”—Warlock’s now-square headed nodded vigorously—“self would certainly prefer self-reference pronouns sub English as they, them, theirs.” The reel-to-reel tape deck spun and then collapsed into a cell phone screen. “But self and selffriends including older selffriends frequently in combat situations! Self does not want to slow down decision-making process for older selffriends with math-explanation regarding G-value or deepstructure change description spoken-English. Self continues as he and him for foregoing reasons.” Warlock paused. "At least for time = now."

Gabby leapt onto the taller, older technarch—so young for a technarch, but so much older (so she remembered) than Gabby—and gave Warlock a hug. “You’re they to me,” she said. “You can always be they to me if you want. You are who you are and anyone who says otherwise gets a big stab!”

Laura frowned, then smiled and began to wash the plates. Warlock threw off a few happy sparks, then a few more sparks, while held in the youngest Wolverine-clone’s embrace; one of them ignited Gabby’s hair, but she simply smoothed it out and extinguished the fire with her hand. The hand itself, briefly covered in blisters, healed fast.

“Selffriend happyunderstanding sparks,” Warlock explained.

“I understand,” Laura said. “Gabby, please do not set anything on fire today, okay? No matter how happy you make our friend. Would anyone like more toast? Or more rotten vegetables? We do not have to go anywhere until noon, when we are planning to meet Sooraya.” Her cell phone rang. “This is Laura Kinney,” she said, “and you are on speaker phone. With whom am I speaking?”

The tenor voice on the other end sounded far away, and took a moment to resolve, as if the caller had to remember to switch to English. “It’s Doug,” the voice said. “Is ‘Lock at your place, or did they go back to the mansion? I’ve been trying to reach them. Nothing bad.”

Warlock extended a cable from his forehead and plugged it directly into the phone, which lit up in a color that Laura had never seen. The two soul friends communicated electronically, at speeds of which Laura and Gabby could only dream.

“I’d love some more toast!” Gabby said. “Is there gooseberry jam, or something, to go with my peanut butter? Strawberry and blueberry are great, but I’m super-tired of having only two options.”

“I know,” Laura said, re-opening the refrigerator. “So am I. Take a look at what else I brought home.”

**Author's Note:**

> For canon sticklers: set sometime after All-New Wolverine 6 and before New Mutants: Dead Souls 1.


End file.
